It All Slides Into Place
by Sorensen
Summary: When Finn realizes what he wants to do with his life, suddenly everything in it makes sense again.


**Title**: It All Slides Into Place

**Pairing**: Finn x Rachel, a bit of Kurt x Blaine

**Summary**: Just a story that wouldn't leave my head this morning after having watched 4.06 and hating the way things ended.

**Timeline**: Spoilers up to 4.07, one tiny spoiler for 4.08 sort've

**Disclaimer**: I don't own Glee. You could probably guess that.

The day Finn realizes what he wants to do with his life, everything suddenly snaps into place. All in one moment he realizes what it was like for all the kids at Graduation who'd already known what they wanted to do for forever. He suddenly has a plan for his life, and everything finally, finally makes sense. He thinks it's a little bit like those times when it rains for days and days and suddenly the sun is just there. At that moment, he thinks only of her.

His next instinct is to tell his family, but he's really not sure who that is anymore. Is it the people he's related to by blood? That's really just his mother. It could be the Glee kids, because he knows how Mr. Schue feels when he says that the Glee Club is like his family. He'd do just about anything for them. He wants to tell Kurt, but after they put on Grease, he'd pushed Kurt away because Kurt reminded him too much of her. It's like when people get divorced, and she got Kurt. It hurts, but as much as he'd wanted to hate her during that time, he knew she needed Kurt more than he did. She was all alone without Kurt, and he knew how much that had killed her when he'd done it to her the first time. He'd been doing the right thing he thought, and maybe he had, but maybe he hadn't done it the right way. He'd pushed her away so fast that she'd been stumbling just to find her place.

It's like this a lot, he realizes. He stopped talking to her after that day, and the hurt had hurt less and less for awhile, he'd dated a couple of girls, but he'd known they weren't for him. They'd both laughed at him when he'd said something stupid, which happened less these days, but she'd never laughed at him. She'd just smiled and calmly explained about what he'd said wrong, and he hadn't felt like an idiot. At some point, he realized that he'd pushed her so far away that she hadn't come back since - she'd skipped Thanksgiving and Christmas, and every holiday since, her Dads always going to visit her. At this moment when his world makes sense, he realizes just how much he has really missed her over the past year, and it nearly breaks him when he realizes how much of her life he has already missed because of his own selfishness. He knows that she pushed him away because she'd wanted so badly for him to catch up to her, for them both to stop feeling like she was always dragging him along behind her, and she'd been trying so hard to make it in New York and keep it together without him. It was her though, so she'd probably soared high over everyone else in the school, because he knew she would be the star like that. He'd always known that much. He just hadn't remembered until now that she'd said she'd always love him, and the couple weeks between when he saw her in the auditorium and when they'd put on Grease wouldn't have changed that.

He wants to talk to her now, but he's not sure if he's really allowed to do that anymore. He did tell her he'd never wanted to see or speak to her again, and he realizes that every time they break up that he does that to her. Always push push pushes her away because seeing her and talking to her always made him realize how he only felt half-alive with other people. He doesn't need her like he did once upon a time, and like he thought he'd always would. He knows now that he'd had so much growing up to do before he was the man she'd deserved. Still deserves. So when he pulls out his phone, he stares at her name for nearly an hour, wondering if it is even her number anymore, if she'd even bother answering. Finally he decides just to text her, because that's safer, right? It takes him almost another hour to figure out what he wants to say, before he finally just gives up and barely messages her at all.

* * *

When Rachel's phone lights up, she's already halfway out the door, almost late to meet Kurt at Callbacks, but really 'almost late' for Rachel is more like half an hour early, so it can't be him. She's trying to get her boot on and unlock her phone at the same time and when she sees 'New Message from Finn Hudson' her heart stops. Finn. He'd broken her heart that day after Grease and she'd spent the last year trying to forget him. Throwing herself into school had worked for her - she'd been the only Freshman in a long, long time at NYADA to perform in the Winter Solstice Performance, and she was at the top of her classes, even if Cassandra hates every moment of admitting that she's the best. It's killing her slowly though, and Kurt has been worried about her burning out for months, and Rachel wonders for the first time if he isn't right. She owes Kurt everything these days, and without the two of them leaning on each other after they'd lost Blaine and Finn, she knows that they would have completely fallen apart. Kurt has slowly become 'home' since neither of them felt like they belonged in Lima anymore.

She sinks into the chair as she stares at her lock screen, and every time the light turns off she hits the button again to turn her phone back on. It's fifteen minutes before she finally gives in and looks at the message, every minute in between having convinced herself both to look at it and to just delete it without ever reading it. She knows she's fooling herself though, because really, she's just as much in love with Finn as she ever has been, and even though she hasn't been allowed to see him or talk to him, she's been keeping tabs on him through the younger Glee members she'd once been in New Directions with. She knows he's practically the man that she'd always seen him have the potential to be. She hasn't told Kurt of her stalking, but she wonders if he really has any place to talk because Blaine and Kurt talk at least once a week. Kurt says they're just "friends", but she knows he's just been taking it slow as he learns how to trust Blaine again. She has a feeling that the second Blaine graduates he'll be in New York and that nothing will be keeping the two of them apart.

"Teacher." That's all it says, but Rachel can't stop the wide grin that takes over her face. He's finally figured it out, what he wants to be, who he really is, and Rachel isn't sure she's ever been happier, not even when she got her first off-broadway role. She'd wanted to talk to Finn so bad that day, but she'd promised him. She calls Kurt to explain why she's late, and she knows he's half-confused and half-relieved from the sound of his voice. Kurt and Finn may have become brothers late in life, but they'd taken to it instantly after their initial hurdles, and she knows that Kurt's self-imposed isolation from their relationship has hurt him. She'd tried to convince him over and over again to talk to Kurt, but he'd always said she'd needed him more. She couldn't help but be selfishly glad that she'd had him all to herself, even if she'd hated thinking it.

She has no idea how to reply for the longest time, and she doesn't know if Finn would even want her to reply at all. Finally she gives in and tries to sum up all her pride, joy, and how much she has missed him all into one tiny sentence that can't possibly say all that, except she hopes he knows it anyway.

"I always knew you could. You'll be great."

* * *

He'd almost given up on her replying when the text message finally comes back, and he unconsciously mirrors that actions that Rachel had taken herself, constantly staring at the screen and wondering if he was brave enough to read the message. When he does, he isn't disappointed in the least, and he's amazed that even after everything they've been through, and despite the time and distance that separates them, she still has complete faith in him. He doesn't bother thinking 'Do you really think so?" because he knows those two short sentences mean more to him coming from her than they would from any other person, because Rachel never lies about that kind of stuff.

He wants to say more to her, so much more at this point. He wants to tell her about all the things he's done in the past year, and how proud he is of the Glee Club and the kids he led while Mr. Schue (he could never learn to call him Will) was away, and how even when he came back they continued to run the club together. Mr. Schue was constantly going back and forth between Lima and Washington anyway. Mr Schue and Emma's wedding had been put off for the last year, but he knows the date is coming up, and that Mr. Schue would understand, but he'd been disappointed if Rachel and Kurt weren't there. Finn wants to tell her all these things, but he isn't sure how to go about it.

When he finally gets the nerve, he hits the send button on his phone, and he prays that Rachel will answer, because if she doesn't, he knows he probably won't get the courage to again. He knows he'll take it as a sign that she doesn't want anything to do with him anymore despite being proud of him.

When the phone does click over, he panics. Neither of them say anything as the silence just sits there between the two of them, feeling like an ocean that he can't possibly cross. Why did he think he could do this again?

But then her voice comes over the line. "Finn..." He knows her well enough to hear her heart in her throat when he speaks, and it gives him the courage to start talking back, because if Rachel can do those, then so can he. It's the way things always went between them after all, Rachel always was the braver one, the smarter one. Before he knows if they're talking about Glee club, and Finn feels like his heart is going to explode and break when Rachel admits that she already knows all about the Glee Club, and it hurts him that much more that he doesn't know anything about what it's been like for Rachel. Rachel is unphased by it though, and when she admits without any shame that she is the top of her class, and what it was like performing for her first audience, Finn knows that he'll give anything to be there for every other first she has. He wants to be there when she does her first show on broadway, and when she gets her first standing ovation, because he wants to be part of that.

Finn talks about how he's planning to sign up for community college, and that he'd been saving up all the money he had for the last year to pay for classes. He realizes that teaching means he's going to be in college for a long time, and that he needs to build up his transcript before he has any chance of transferring to New York in order to be with Rachel, but as they talk long into the night, and then every few days as the weeks go by, he knows that this separation is completely different from the one they'd been living before. Now he is doing everything he possibly can to be ready for her when they can start again. This time, when they get together again, he knows it's for good.


End file.
